When someone overestimates the importance of traits while underestimating the importance of the situation when explaining the behavior of other people, that person is: a. using the foot-in-the-door technique. b. committing the fundamental attribution error. c. resorting to lowballing. d. using the door-in-the-face technique.

    B. Committing the fundamental attribution error

Explanation:  The fundamental attribution error is precisely the tendency to reach a conclusion or make judgements about a person based on that person's personal characteristics rather than on the basis of the real circumstances surrounding the situation. More precisely, this is as stated in the question, the overestimation of one's traits in evaluating one's behaviour and resulting in judgement, while the influence of the situation on the behaviour of the observed person is underestimated, which can sometimes be the real cause of that person's behaviour and not his or her personal traits.

The phenomenon of foot-in-the-door entry is the tendency of people to gradually meet the requirements, from small to increasing demands, such as entering a room with a foot inside the door, initially the foot just keeps the door open but eventually person is in the room.

Lowballing is when a person is dedicated or committed to someone, and then it comes down to the cost of that commitment.

Door-in-the-face is a technique or phenomenon where one requires an extremely large or negative request from us, and it is very likely that because of the size of the request or because of the negative nature of the request, we will refuse to do so. It is as if, while refusing that request, we slam the door in the face of the one who made the request. It is also very likely we will then respond positively to another, less demanded task. So it's like some psychological navigation done by the requester, first we have to crack the bonus of saying no in order to still satisfy some normal requirement.